


Found

by AlexisGreen (thealexmachina)



Series: We Belong [1]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Developing Relationship, Drama, F/M, Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Girl Power, Historical References, I Made Myself Cry, Made For Each Other, Romance, Series, Soulmates, small tiny mature content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 17:16:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12845790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealexmachina/pseuds/AlexisGreen
Summary: In Gold Rush era California, Sheriff Michaelson cannot explain what draws him to Hayley Marshall and her ranch





	Found

**Author's Note:**

> Horribly late to the tv series and absolutely craving a happy end for Elijah and Hayley, so here I am, putting words on paper for the first time in years. I will attempt a few more historical settings, but these can be stand alone too. Rating will move to explicit at some point too; my smut skills are rusty for now. Thank you for reading & appreciate your feedback.

New Bethlehem, 1853

Hot days made for restless thoughts, his papa used to say. And sure as eggs is eggs, the draw was still there, a vague calling that echoed in his heart. There was no name for it, like a longing for something that had never been his to begin with, layered on a knowing whose meaning escaped him. It’d been too long since he’d seen her, he decided and saddled up, anxious to feel the old battered leather underneath him again. 

He watched her from afar, her ranch a mere ten minute ride outside the town. Hair bearing the burn of the sun, lighter with each year she spent in California, skirts dusty and well worn boots, she looked at once outstanding and eternal. She’d shown up five winters ago, alone, a child in tow and a small fortune in coins and staked her settlement before the Gold Rush swept the land. A stranger to these parts and yet she fit, as if she’d been roaming these hills, riding her horses since before the beginning of time. Townsfolk took to her and took to her daughter, Hope, too the absence of her father a detail smoothed over by widow Marshall’s quiet kindness and keen eye for business. That first summer they spent in Bethlehem, she sold five horses to prospectors sniffing out the gold in the rivers to the north. Two years later, she bred tens of them, and cattle too, as the first rush gave way to new towns, new churches and schools, and people coming from all over the world to get rich quick, or just get rich or die trying. 

He didn’t quite understand what made him ride over, sometimes once a month, sometimes more often, to say hello, to check on her. He tried to be a good man, for the town that gave him a new life, even if it didn't erase his past. The horrors of the war he’d seen and survived, he argued with himself, made him want to make sure she was safe, out here in the wilderness, even as he had no claim to her or her loved ones. A neighbourly protection, was all. Lord knows she didn’t need his protection though. He’d seen her clear the head off a rattlesnake from fifty yards, with barely as much as a squint against the sun, arm steady and shotgun steady. She hunted in the hills and wielded a knife better than a butcher on market days. She made it on her own and on her own terms and raising a child at that, so the smile she gave him when he approached felt like a blessing.

‘Sheriff Michaelson,’ she greeted him and in her eyes, for the first time since the war, Elijah saw a future. Winters full of stories told quietly by the fireplace, Hope giddy with anticipation. Foaling in the springtime, a time for primal new beginnings. And hot summer nights, out in the meadow, far away from the noise of the house, Hayley riding his hips with abandon, eyes closed in pleasure, his fingers marking her thighs, bodies hidden in the tall grasses. Yes, there was a future there and a purpose for him too.


End file.
